Cadillac Gets Official Thumbs Up To Join F1 In 2026

After a years-long saga, it's now officially official: Cadillac will join the Formula 1 grid in 2026.

On Wednesday, Formula 1 announced that the team formed by a partnership between General Motors and TWG Global — a holding company whose portfolio includes the Los Angeles Dodgers and Andretti Global — will expand the series' grid to 11 teams and 22 cars.

"The FlA and Formula 1 can confirm that, following the completion of their respective sporting, technical and commercial assessments, the application by General Motors and TWG Motorsports to bring a Cadillac team to the FlA Formula One World Championship from 2026 has been approved," a statement reads.

This is great news for the sport — especially in the US — but man, it took a long time to get here.

This all started with Michael Andretti trying to start a team and while he did manage to get approval from the FIA, his initial bid didn't get approval from Formula One Management, or FOM, even after GM joined the project with plans to build its power units, something F1 was looking for.

However, last fall F1 announced plans to add Cadillac — which currently fields hypercars in both the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship and the World Endurance Championship — to the grid.

"I couldn’t be prouder of the effort put in thus far by the entire Cadillac Formula 1 team," team principal Graeme Lowdon said in a statement. "This announcement is the next step in getting on the grid and continued work toward building a full-works team.

"Through the long and thorough application process, we never lost pace in planning or belief in our mission. We can’t wait to go racing and give fans a new team to cheer for."

The plan for the team is to use Ferrari power units and gearboxes, but they're planning on becoming a "full works" team by the end of the decade by building those parts on their own through TWG GM Performance Power Units.

The team will also have several bases of operation with facilities in Fishers, Indiana; Charlotte, North Carolina; Warren, Michigan; and Silverstone, England.

Of course, one of the biggest things to watch from now until next season will be Cadillac's driver lineup. There has already been talk of the team wanting an American driver — with Andretti IndyCar driver Colton Herta often being cited as an option — but there are plenty of experienced drivers without seats in F1, who I'm sure would at least be interested in this given it's a long-term project backed by one of the biggest auto manufacturers on the planet.